One mock epic ends and another mock epic begins. This is the way of things in the endless saga of the Clinton non-scandals.

So, on Tuesday, when FBI director James Comey announced that neither Hillary Rodham Clinton nor any member of her staff would face criminal charges involving her use of a private e-mail system, the epic involving the actual e-mail system ended, but what began was the epic of Unanswered Questions and Curious Timing and Lax Culture. And, behind the bar in the cocktail lounge of the Mena Airport, the barkeeps lay in more supplies in anticipation of a post-holiday rush.

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

Let us state plainly at the outset that Comey's report gives more than enough for HRC's opponents to chew on, and there's certainly enough there to fuel an elite political press desperate to create a competitive election between HRC and He, Trump. It's only a matter of time before the documents produced in the investigation come pouring into the public domain.

In any event, Comey's statement was, in a word, scathing. From FBI.gov:

Although we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information. For example, seven e-mail chains concern matters that were classified at the Top Secret/Special Access Program level when they were sent and received. These chains involved Secretary Clinton both sending e-mails about those matters and receiving e-mails from others about the same matters. There is evidence to support a conclusion that any reasonable person in Secretary Clinton's position, or in the position of those government employees with whom she was corresponding about these matters, should have known that an unclassified system was no place for that conversation.

In addition to this highly sensitive information, we also found information that was properly classified as Secret by the U.S. Intelligence Community at the time it was discussed on e-mail (that is, excluding the later "up-classified" e-mails). None of these e-mails should have been on any kind of unclassified system, but their presence is especially concerning because all of these e-mails were housed on unclassified personal servers not even supported by full-time security staff, like those found at Departments and Agencies of the U.S. Government—or even with a commercial service like Gmail. Separately, it is important to say something about the marking of classified information. Only a very small number of the e-mails containing classified information bore markings indicating the presence of classified information. But even if information is not marked "classified" in an e-mail, participants who know or should know that the subject matter is classified are still obligated to protect it.

Let us also state plainly at the outset that what Comey is describing above is a more than legitimate issue in the presidential campaign, and that "Hoorah! I'm Not Indicted!" isn't exactly an inspiring Message Of The Day for your first appearance on the stump with the president.

And while Comey is not the shining knight that his official story makes him—almost two years ago, Marcy Wheeler explained why the legend of Comey as midnight-riding defender of the Constitution is incredibly overblown—he's not a partisan hack, either. His words carry real weight. So if, in this summer of its existential crisis, the Republican Party has not been gifted with the nuclear bomb of its dreams, it still has been handed enough ordnance to distract the nation's attention from the vulgar talking yam it is preparing to nominate in a couple of weeks.

However, the apparently inexhaustible ability of the Clintons to prompt Republicans to hysterical overreaction is working to HRC's advantage. Of course, He, Trump hit the electric Twitter machine with his hair on fire.

More intriguing was the reaction of Speaker Paul Ryan, the zombie-eyed granny starver from the state of Wisconsin, and (allegedly) the grown-up in any room also containing any other prominent Republican.

"While I respect the law enforcement professionals at the FBI, this announcement defies explanation. No one should be above the law…Declining to prosecute Secretary Clinton for recklessly mishandling and transmitting national security information will set a terrible precedent. The findings of this investigation also make clear that Secretary Clinton misled the American people when she was confronted with her criminal actions. While we need more information about how the Bureau came to this recommendation, the American people will reject this troubling pattern of dishonesty and poor judgment."

USA Todayrounded up some of the other reactions from GOP luminaries. Rand Paul, whose name I seem to recall in some context related to the 2016 election, seems to have been the bullgoose hysteric of the ensemble. While attacking the integrity of the investigation may give The Base a tingle in all their naughty bits, it's exactly the wrong thing to do. First of all, it won't have legs in the elite political media because, as we said, rightly or wrongly, Comey's built up a stainless rep within the Beltway.

Second, to anyone who hasn't been marinating in Clintonophobia since 1992, positing Comey as a tool of the Washington Illuminati will look like the ravings of people who've been munching on the mushrooms in the InfoWars green room.

"Hoorah! I'm Not Indicted!" isn't exactly an inspiring Message Of The Day for your first appearance on the stump with the president.

And third, if He, Trump will just shut up long enough to notice, Tuesday's events have given an excuse for the people who might otherwise have fled from his campaign as though it were malarial to at least start edging back in the general direction of the presumptive nominee. I notice that, perhaps coincidentally, old pal Scott Walker has announced that he'll be speaking in Cleveland after all. Stampeding the hall! You know he's thinking that.

And if He, Trump will get the hell out of his own way, the elite political press will do a lot of pretty good work for him. I even heard one correspondent speculate that the president "will pay a political price" for whatever went on at the State Department. Pro Tip: the president, as he has demonstrated every day since his big bag of fcks became empty, has no political price to pay for anything, and he knows it. He certainly didn't look ambivalent on the stump Tuesday afternoon.

Barack Obama with no fcks whatsoever to give is a helluva political insurance policy, I'll give him that.

GettyNicholas Kamm

(By the way, I'd like to congratulate Brian Williams of MSNBC for a great segment on MSNBC Tuesday afternoon for bringing on, in order, Rudy Giuliani, Nicolle Wallace, and Mark Halperin to tut-tut away the day: famous national-security incompetent Giuliani ripped Comey, because Giuliani remains a dunce; Halperin declared that Comey had "practically indicted" HRC, and Wallace was quick to point out that HRC was not perceived as "normal," which is really something coming from Sarah Palin's old coat-holder. Jesus, this is going to be a long four months.)

Ian Millhiser at ThinkProgress had the best analysis of why HRC wasn't going to face criminal indictment anyway. The most fundamental reason is that any prosecution would be nearly impossible because the classification system in the United States government regarding e-mails is both technically obsolete and hilariously insane.

Setting aside the bare language of the law, there's also a very important practical reason why officials in Clinton's position are not typically indicted. The security applied to classified email systems is simply absurd. For this reason, a former CIA general counsel told the Washington Post's David Ignatius, "'it's common' that people end up using unclassified systems to transmit classified information." "'It's inevitable, because the classified systems are often cumbersome and lots of people have access to the classified e-mails or cables.' People who need quick guidance about a sensitive matter often pick up the phone or send a message on an open system. They shouldn't, but they do." Indicting Clinton would require the Justice Department to apply a legal standard that would endanger countless officials throughout the government, and that would make it impossible for many government offices to function effectively.

The only way today's events transforms the campaign is if He, Trump can restrain himself in order to let other people do his work for him, and if enough allegedly establishment Republicans can let go of the fever dream of a Clinton in an orange jumpsuit that has consumed them for almost 25 years.